


lipstick and lace

by erebones



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 04:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12073215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: At Carey and Killian's wedding, old feelings rekindle themselves.





	lipstick and lace

**Author's Note:**

> Just a really quick PSA: I LOVE Barry, and I love the blupjeans ship, but I'm a hardcore wlw and need me some girls loving girls. For the sake of keeping this short and sweet, Barry isn't in the picture romantically with Lup, but in future fics I definitely want to explore some of those good good poly dynamics. 
> 
> Lucretia's dress is essentially the powder blue Cinderella dress Lupita Nyong'o wore at the 2014 Oscars. Lup's outfit (and general Look) is based on this piece of gorgeous fanart by unhooking-the-stars: http://unhooking-the-stars.tumblr.com/post/161368192127/nerd-alert

Lucretia escaped the festivities the first chance she got. In the midst of dancing, she slipped away from a jig with Magnus and Avi and darted into the corridor, struggling to catch her breath.

The dress was perfect, obviously—Avi was a master of many trades, not the least of them seamstressing—but it still managed to pinch a little too tightly around the ribs. At least the small illusion magic she cast to set her makeup was holding. She stepped into the powder room and checked her reflection in the mirror, resisting the urge to recoil. All those years and the crisp helmet of white hair was still a shock to her.

She stood closer to the mirror and turned this way and that, inspecting herself. The fit was perfect, if a little low-cut; the V-shaped neckline plunged all the way to the bottom of her sternum, but Merle had informed her solicitously that she didn’t look _too much like a harlot_. When she worked a finger underneath the structured empire waistline, there was just enough give to be comfortable. So why did she feel like she was suffocating at her dear friends’ wedding?

“Hey there, foxy lady.”

Lucretia startled back from the mirror and turned, fumbling her hands behind her back. “Lup. Hello. I… didn’t see you there.”

Lup smiled real slow, the movement of her mouth made overt by the brilliant, aquiline red of her lipstick. Lucretia suddenly found it hard to breathe again. “Well I saw _you_. Got an itchy tag or something?”

“What? Oh, no, no. This was commissioned specially for the—occasion.” She swallowed hard around the stopgap in her throat. Why was it so hard to talk to Lup when it was just the two of them? In groups it was fine—fine because Lucretia could just slip into the background, slip back into her old, mousy habits and go unnoticed. “You look… very nice.”

“Thank you.” Lup smiled wider, wide enough to show the faint white glint of incisors against her deep crimson mouth. Her lacy, moss-grey shawl rippled slightly as she moved closer, whipping her fire-hued skirts around her legs. Come to think of it, Lucretia wasn’t sure she even _had_ a top on underneath. She averted her eyes as Lup came near, trying not to look too closely. “Do you need help with your dress?”

Lucretia grimaced at the floor. “It just… feels a little snug. I can stand it, it isn’t a big—oh.”

She swallowed her entire voice as Lup put a careful hand on her back, just below the constricting waistband. Gentle pressure encouraged her to turn, away from Lup to face the mirror. “Let me look.”

Lucretia stared into the mirror. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Lup’s hands were infinitely tender as they manipulated the lacing of her short bodice; Lucretia could feel her breath on the skin between her shoulderblades where the dress dipped low in back like it did in the front. Lup’s reflection furrowed her brow and stuck out her lip in concentration. And then—

“How’s that?”

Lucretia took a deep breath and let it out in a relieved sigh. “How did you do that?”

“Just took you down a peg.” She dropped Lucretia a wink, her lashes as thick and lustrous as the dark feathers adorning the dinner jacket of Taako’s plus one. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell. When were you fitted?”

“We made the final adjustments a few days ago, I don’t see why there’s a problem.” She braced her hand on her ribs just beneath the deep cut of the bodice and met Lup’s eyes in the mirror. _Dammit. Still too tight._

“It’s probably the way you’re holding yourself. _Relax_ , Madam Director.” Lup put her hand flat against Lucretia’s spine. Lucretia tensed, but a moment later she felt a curious warmth spreading across her back, and when she met Lup’s eyes in the mirror she was glowing very faintly. “See?” Lup said softly. “Let the weight go for a day. It’s a party. You don’t have to be the savior of the world all the time.”

Lucretia turned away from the mirror so she wouldn’t have to watch her face crumpling in real time, but then Lup was _right there_ , golden and befreckled, cupping Lucretia’s face in her soft hands before she had the chance to run.

With a gargantuan effort, Lucretia pulled herself together, forcing another wave of magicka into her illusion spell. But the next moment she felt the gentle heat of Lup’s own power, and Lup’s thumb lifted to carefully wipe away the tear tracking its way down her cheek.

“Don’t,” Lucretia whispered, but she didn’t have the heart to pull it away. It felt too good, and she had never been as strong as everyone else thought.

“You know that I forgive you, right?” Lup said. “I know Taako is still sore, and he probably will be for a while, but I— _we_ still love you, Lucy.”

Lucretia made an embarrassingly high-pitched noise and leaned into her. No one had called her Lucy in years, and hearing it now brought her back, fiercely and without warning, into an older time. A simpler time. When the Starblaster was just a blueprint on a wall, when she was more concerned with grades than the fates of thousands of souls, when the Light of Creation was a theory and not a desperate quarry hunted through a hundred universes. A time when Lup would sneak out of her dorm room at night and climb up the lattice to Lucretia’s window to sit and watch the stars and dream about what mysteries there were to be found. Together.

But Lucretia was a coward. As with so many other things. Too afraid to reach out and say what she longed for, even after years of fighting and running and seeking. Too afraid to return smiles, or friendly words. And as she fed IPRE’s memories to Fisher, she made a fresh start and buried her feelings deep in the sand where no one would ever find them.

At least, she thought she had. Lup’s strong arms around her, made warm by her magicks and not the cold, undead core of her lich’s form, felt so much like home she was having trouble breathing again.

“I’m so sorry,” she said at last, letting herself hiccup once or twice before smoothing her face with her fingers and trying to expel the soft flower-dust smell of Lup’s perfume from her nose. “I guess the high emotions of the day just got to me, I didn’t mean to—”

“Lucretia.” Lup reached for her hands, and Lucretia gave them up willingly without thinking twice. “It’s going to be okay.”

Lucretia gave a wobbly smile. “And you deserve it.”

Lup frowned. “So do _you_. Luce, please tell me you’re not going to hang out in this little bubble of self-disdain you’ve got going on. I’m not really a fan. Why so gloomy? Today is a _happy_ day.”

“I _am_ happy for Carey and Killian.” She hesitated. Then took a breath and channeled all the cool, collected calm she’d scraped together during her years as the Director and said, “I suppose today is also a reminder of my own failures, too.”

Lup leaned back against the sinks and folded her arms over her chest. “How so?”

“I had many opportunities over the years to… be brave. Only I wasn’t, not for a long time. Not when it mattered. Instead of being honest with myself and with others, I hid. And now I’m paying for it.” She turned her back on Lup, ostensibly to check her reflection in the mirror. But all she could see was Lup’s, blurred and slightly hazy; a lich had no reflection, not without some kind of glamour, and Lup’s was slipping. “You should go back to the party,” Lucretia said, digging in her clutch for a her lipstick. A neutral brown shade, sensible, staid. Something to match the drab, old exterior she now possessed.

“Wait.” Lup came toward her and held out a slim tube of lacquer. The same deep, vibrant matte red she was wearing. “This would suit you better, I think.”

Lucretia took it but didn’t uncap it. “I’m not trying to attract attention, Lulu,” she said, clinging to a brusque tone to keep her facade intact.

“Why not?” Lup asked, folding her arms again. She cocked her hip against the counter and let her eyes wander. Lucretia could feel her gaze like silk on her bare arms, her chest, the smoke-powder blue of her gown. “You’re gorgeous. You deserve to be looked at.”

Lucretia bit her lip and tried to hand back the lipstick. “Lup…”

“What? It’s the truth. Here, let me help you.” With a careful hand, Lup touched Lucretia’s jaw to keep her steady and popped the cap off the tube with her teeth. Lucretia held very still, eyes half-shut, averted in embarrassment at the heat sweeping through her as Lup swept the brush over her parted lips. Then it was done, and Lup capped it and slipped the lipstick discreetly into Lucretia’s clutch. “There. Stunning.”

Lucretia glanced at her reflection out of the corner of her eye. The red was bold. Brazen. The red was _Lup_. And somehow, a little of her friend’s fire seemed to fill her at the sight. “I should blot it before it dries,” she whispered.

Lup smirked. She hadn’t yet released her chin. “Good idea,” she said, and kissed her.

Lucretia froze. Lup’s thumb was gentle on her face, her lips soft and a little bit sticky with lipstick. When she drew back, her mouth was even more vibrant and her eyes were shadowy, hooded and kind as they looked down at her.

“Too much?”

“I… I’m _old_ ,” Lucretia blurted, and immediately wished she could take it back. “I mean—”

Lup burst out laughing. “What are you talking about? We’ve lived a hundred lives together, Luce. I’m a _lich_ inhabiting in a manufactured body. So what if you lost a few years in that shitty hole in the Wilds?” She cupped Lucretia’s face again, so gently, like she couldn’t bear to take her hands away. Lucretia shut her eyes and let herself wrap her arms around Lup’s waist. “You’re still beautiful. Still my lovely Lucy.”

“Lup…”

“Yeah?”

A thousand words sprang to her lips. What about Taako? What about the Bureau of Benevolence, and Lup’s new gig with the Raven Queen, and Lucretia’s mortality? But none of it made it out, in the end. Just a tiny, nervous smile, and a simple request: “Will you kiss me again?”

Lup grinned—that wide, somewhat terrifying shark’s grin that she shared with her brother—and leaned down. “With pleasure.”

It wasn’t entirely perfect, and yet it was _everything_. Her kisses tasted like lipstick, but they were warm and soft, and when Lup’s hands slid under the back of Lucretia’s dress she felt distinctly as if her soul were leaving her body.

“Hey,” she gasped, pulling back just enough to admire the smear of ruby-red at the corner of Lup’s mouth. “Keep your Grim Reaper hands to yourself.”

“Is that an order, Director?” Lup purred.

“Not in the slightest."

One kiss bled into another, and soon Lucretia found herself pushed back against the mirror, icy-cold against her feverish skin. Lup’s mouth didn’t taste of lipstick anymore. She looked as if she’d been mauled—Lucretia had left a brilliant red blotch at her throat, and when she dragged her thumb against it Lup made a gravelly sound in her throat and groped Lucretia’s thigh through her layered skirts. Lucretia’s fingers slipped and she giggled in a most un-director-like way.

“What’s so funny?” Lup breathed.

“I was right: you’re not wearing a top.”

Lup smirked and laid one hand over Lucretia’s until her breast filled her palm, masked by the artful drape of her shawl. Lucretia’s breath stuttered in her chest. “It’s all the rage in Neverwinter.”

The door to the powder room swung open suddenly and Lucretia snatched her hand away, not that it did much good—Lup was still crowding her against the mirror carelessly, and their mouths were both a wreck of lipstick-smeared evidence.

Carey and Killian stood framed in the doorway, frozen like a half-finished epitaph. They didn’t look much better off. Carey’s dress was looking distinctly bedraggled, hiked up to her hip under Killian’s groping hand, and Killian was flushed a dark green, her pristine coif run amok. A stray pair of Carey’s fake lashes were clinging to her cheek.

Killian coughed.

“Well this is awkward,” Lup said, grinning like she’d just won the lottery. “We were here first, bugger off and find your own illicit closet to shag in.”

“We’re _married_ , it’s not illicit!” Carey protested stridently at the same time that Lucretia said, “They’re _married_ , they definitely get dibs.”

Killian smirked. “Outnumbered. And if you _don’t_ give us this room I’ll go tell your brother you’re in here getting hot and heavy with the _Director_.”

Lucretia winced, flushed hot from head to toe with embarrassment—how _ignoble_ , to be caught with your hand up a girl’s shirt by your _employees_ —but Lup just laughed and tugged her away from the mirror.

“All right, you win. Just let us clean up a minute.”

What followed was a very awkward five minutes. Killian sat squarely on the ornamental bench at the other end of the room with Carey on her lap, grooming her hair into place and cooing indistinctly. Lucretia wet a towel and scrubbed her face and throat clean, still burning with shame, until even her lips were bare and unadorned. Next to her, Lup traced her fingers over the smears of red and magicked them away, composed, not even a hair out of place as she perfected the outline of her lips. She glanced at Lucretia in the mirror.

“Hmmm. You’re right, maybe _au naturel_ is the way to go.” With a swipe of her thumb, her lips were fresh and clean and… slightly dewy? How did she do that? “Come on,” she whispered, lacing her fingers with Lucretia’s. “Before we’re missed.”

Lup pulled her out of the room and down the hall, but before they could re-enter the party—which sounded to be in full swing—Lucretia dragged them both to a halt.

“Lup, wait.”

“What is it?” She adjusted her drape of her shawl conscientiously and smirked. “What, are my nips showing?”

Lucretia lifted her chin and looked away, deliberately drawing the invisible cloak of the Director around her shoulders. “It might be better if we’re not seen together.”

The smile dropped off Lup’s face in a heartbeat. “Why not?”

“I’m… we’re…” Gods help her, she was already faltering. “I don’t think Taako would be pleased.”

“Really? You want us to sneak around like a couple of kids just because my brother is being a butt?”

Lucretia’s lips pinched in a reluctant smile. “Justifiably so.”

“Luce. Listen to me.” Lup glanced around, making sure they were absolutely alone, and gathered both of Lucretia’s hands in hers, very politely ignoring the way Lucretia’s palms were clammy with cold sweat. “I didn’t sit in a umbrella for years and years to come out and do _absolutely nothing_ interesting. Fine, maybe it’s a risk. Maybe some people will look at us a bit strangely. But I’m about a hundred and eight years beyond giving a fuck.” Lup drew herself up to her full height and her glamour flickered; Lucretia willed herself not to cringe away from the glint of flame deep in her eyes, the shadow of a skull’s grin underneath her soft lips. “You’re the strongest woman I know. If you don’t want to pursue this—pursue _me_ —tell me now and I’ll respect it. But if the only reason you can give me is because you’re _afraid_ , then you’re not the Lucretia I remember.”

Lucretia scoffed. “What are you talking about? I was nothing _but_ afraid, before.”

“And did you ever let it stop you?” Lup smiled with all of her teeth at Lucretia’s dumbfounded silence. “No. You didn’t. You were always on the front lines, always helping, documenting everything. And now the _world_ knows what you did. What you sacrificed. How fucking _brave_ you were.”

Lucretia took a deep breath. “You’re looking through rose-colored lenses, I’m pretty sure.”

“Maybe. What’s wrong with that?” Lup leaned close and kissed her temple, whispering, “Just take the fucking compliment, you goose.”

Lucretia choked. “Fine. _Fine_. You completely ridiculous woman.” She freed one hand from Lup’s grip and slipped it around the nape of her neck, bringing her down a handful of inches to rest their foreheads together. “In that case, may I have this dance?”

Through the double doors drifted a pretty, quiet tune, something she remembered well—one of the many little scraps of song Lup had composed during her time at the Legato Conservatory. Someone had taken it and expanded it, turned it into a waltz for piano and cello that filled her heart and made her long to sway in Lup’s embrace. Lup smiled and cocked her head toward the doors.

“Alone? Or…”

Lucretia shook her head. “I think we’ve both been alone for long enough, don’t you?”

Lup grinned and threaded her arm through Lucretia’s, and they walked together arm in arm into the banquet hall.


End file.
